


It's all in the Delivery

by Sethrial



Category: After the Storm - Hannah Birchwood & Key Dyson & Raymond Roach
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/F, Gen, Light-Hearted, No Plot/Plotless, Take Your Fandom to Work Day, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:14:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24583618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sethrial/pseuds/Sethrial
Summary: A series of short, fun stories about a violence-loving delivery driver, written by a violence-loving delivery driver. Noreal plot. No real plans. I'll keep writing as long as it's fun and post the chapters I finish. Ratings and tags will be adjusted as necessary.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

The day was weirdly normal. Five deliveries in and Athena hadn’t been asked to do any illegal runs or off the book extra pickups. LunchBox was always a crap shoot in that regard. Some days would be all above board, all day. Others she would be in and out of selkie trading pop-ups and the bottom floor of the mall at least once an hour. 

LunchBox trips trended short, half an hour each at the most, and cheap, but they were easy work and didn’t usually involve much lifting or paperwork, or hunting down recipients, or waiting around in a queue for orders to be loaded and unloaded. 

Pick up from a restaurant, drive to a customer, and as soon as they both confirmed the drop off Athena got her pay out. It wasn’t the most money she could make as a freelance driver, but it was the best she could do if she didn’t want to work a full shift. Ship 2 Ship was a lot more lucrative, but it wanted full six hour days, and she always ended up having to do at least a little heavy lifting if she didn’t want to get hung up waiting for a machine and the mechanic who ran it. 

Athena pulled up to the lower deck of the _Acadia_ with a metric fuck ton of curry, a few bottles of rice wine, and an entire mango cake. 

She was also sporting split knuckles and a fresh black eye. It hadn’t started swelling until she was two orders into her non-fist-based job, and now, three and a half hours after getting sucker punched, it was swollen shut tightly enough that she could barely open it with two fingers and tender enough that she wasn’t keen to test that fact a second time. It wasn’t her first black eye, wouldn’t be her last, and she more than knew how they went on someone in her weight class. She would be able to see out of it by tomorrow, and in four days there wouldn’t be anything left to talk about. 

Three bottles of sweet sake were the most illegal thing she’d seen all day. Delivering alcohol was outlawed the same way swimming within 50 meters of a boat was. Technically against the rules, but the worst she would ever get from being caught was a stern warning not to do it again. Downright wholesome compared to some things she wouldn’t admit to doing in public, but she still negotiated a free double helping of shrimp fried rice for herself in exchange for safe delivery. Sun made the best fried rice in the fleet, and Athena didn’t feel like a free dinner was too much to ask in exchange for bending the rules and keeping quiet about it. 

She kept the bottles in her shoulder bag anyway, just so no one would see them until they were at their final destination. 

Athena found the right room up two floors and down a hallway, and helped a skinny, spotty teenager unload a good twenty pounds of food from her float table while his skinny, spotty teenage friends stared at her. 

“What?” Athena asked when the food was out of her hands. Wine too, but the guy who ordered it hadn’t confirmed delivery yet. 

“You’re a _girl_ ,” the bravest of them said. 

Athena made a show of pulling her shirt collar out a few inches and looking down her own cleavage. “Well, huh. Would you look at that? I _am_ a girl.” 

“How’d you get hurt?” another asked. 

“Do I look hurt?” she raised the eyebrow with the bruise under it and subtly squared her shoulders, just enough to quietly remind him that she could snap him in half bare handed. 

“No ma’am,” he squeaked. 

Damn straight.

“What’s a girl doing on the _Acadia_?” the first kid asked. He looked maybe 14 and was awkwardly gangly and long-limbed, like a human crane fly. 

“Her goddamned job, one she’s really hoping to get paid for sometime tonight. So, if you wouldn’t mind..?” 

“Shit! Right!” the one who helped her unload said. He opened his screen and fumbled for the right menu with the exaggerated motions of someone who was used to data rings. He couldn’t have had his implants for more than a month if he still used a full armed swipe to change screens. “Sorry. I’ve never used LunchBox before. What’s, uh. What’s a good tip?” 

Athena took pity on the kid and didn’t even lie to him. “Ten percent for good, on time service. Twenty percent if your driver goes above and beyond, like delivering in the rain or bringing you something extra.” She gave the liquor a meaningful look. “You never _have_ to tip, but we get to rate you too, and higher rated customers get matched with higher rated drivers on future orders. If you’re a good customer you’ll get your food faster and not get wrong orders as often.” 

“Twenty percent it is,” he said, and found the right button. 

“Thank you kindly.” Athena shoved her float table into her shoulder bag and made her way back down to her bike. _Luna_ was right where Athena left her, and had only gathered a little bit of a crowd in the ten minutes she was gone. Three men in mechanic’s coveralls were looking over the bike from a respectful distance, leaned together and speaking in low voices. _Luna_ outmassed and outclassed everything else docked that day by a good order of magnitude, and she had a tendency to get noticed wherever she went. 

“Nice, right?” Athena asked from behind the whispering trio. 

They whirled around comically. The shortest of the three caught some air on the way around and stumbled the dismount. Athena tried not to laugh at them, and managed to keep it to just a wide, toothy predator’s grin. She watched their eyes travel, noticing things in a certain order, the same way people usually did. Height first, width second, hair third, and whatever was bruised or bloody a very distant fourth. 

“Oh. Oh _hell_ that explains it,” one of them, a younger guy with an elaborate crown of braids, said with abnormal confidence for someone coming face to chest with her for the first time. “We were trying to figure out who in their right mind would fly a Rhino shell with a Falcon engine, but, yeah.” 

“Yeah,” Athena agreed, smile widening. Not exactly her type, but at least he had something other than scrap between his ears. 

“How’s she handle?” the middle one asked. He had tan skin and mossy green hair that was either natural or freshly dyed. Either way, it was a pretty good look for a guy on an ag boat. 

“Like a dream,” Athena brushed past them and settled her mass into the sized-for-her seat, pulled the controls up to flying position, and kicked _Luna_ to life. She hummed like a greek choir and rose to ready, just a few inches higher than the hover dock held her. 

“”How fast does she go? I’ve never heard of anyone putting a Falcon in a frame that big, but yeah, no reason it shouldn’t work, especially with _those_ friction shields. She’s a gorgeous build,” the mossy green guy gushed. 

“Thanks,” Athena said. “Got her for a bargain. She tops out at 55, but I try to keep it around 40-45. Safety first!” she chirped. 

The guy with the braids barked a laugh. The other two just looked confused. They must not have been in the bike modding community for long if they thought people talked about their black market builds to any jackass sitting on a dock. Athena pulled up entirely out of the docking station, turned around with exaggerated slowness, and rocketed away from the _Acadia_ at an easy 80 miles an hour, straight out of the gate. 

She slowed down a mile and a half away, down to an almost legal cruising speed, and checked LunchBox. It dinged at her right after she took off. Dillon G., the kid who helped her unload, rated her 3/3 stars for punctual, precise, and polite, and upped his tip to 25%. Not half bad. She gave him a thumbs up in return and pulled over to check her metrics for the night. She’d been out for three hours and made pretty good money. Nothing like what she won in her couple matches today, but LunchBox paid 100% legal Fleet credits that she could access without jumping through any hoops, and her hours worked were on record.

Tia Maria wanted her to log at least a couple hours in a work app every day, even if it wasn’t her main job, even if she would have been fine without the extra money. Athena was young, strong, and healthy enough to make a good living with her fists, but, as her Tias constantly reminded her, that wouldn’t be true forever. Eventually age or injury would slow her down and show fighting wouldn’t be an option anymore. Athena would need another job at some point, and there was no way of knowing when that would be. It could be fifty years from now, when she’s more gray than red and creaks when she walks. It could be tomorrow, if she breaks a hand just wrong. When it happened, Athena would have an easier time transitioning into something more stable if she had a long record of hard work behind her. She wasn’t a slacker, never had been, but job placement programs didn’t notice the blood, sweat, and tears she’d sunk into her fighting career. All they saw was whether or not she showed up to a job and when. 

Just over three hours was a good short shift, and she even got a free meal out of it. Tomorrow she’d open up Ship 2 Ship and she and _Luna_ would log a full day on the lake. Day after that she’d hit the gym and see what she felt like doing afterwards. That’s as far ahead as she needed to plan right now. She ended her run in the Lunchbox program, then looped around and headed toward home.


	2. Chapter 2

“Hey Haru. What’s new tonight?” Athena asked when her favorite server finally got to her. 

Haru sat in the seat next to her at the empty community table to take her order and chat for a minute. “With me or the menu?” 

It was early in the night, and Second Twelve was nearly empty. They catered to the night owls who haunted the mall and were only open from 6 pm to 6 am. Perfect for Athena, who had just gotten off of an excruciatingly long shift with Ship 2 Ship, and needed a good drink and something to eat. 

“You first,” Athena said. 

“Dumped my boy, cut my hair, got fired for calling Haps an idiot and rehired immediately after when the rest of the crew threatened to walk, and that’s just today.” 

Happert Harrigan was Second Twelve’s owner on paper, but it was no secret who really ran the bar. Haru was the creative mind behind most of its best drinks and dishes, and the reason people kept coming back. Haps was the only one who had any illusions otherwise. 

“Sorry about your boy,” Athena said without feeling. Haru didn’t seem too broken up about it, so she didn’t worry too much. 

“Don’t be. He was a total weirdo. Kept angling for a footjob, just to see what it was like. Like, bro, it’s a handjob that smells like dirty socks. I don’t know what you’re expecting.” 

Athena snorted. That was one way to describe it. “I got fingered by a fourhands under a table once. Got the _worst_ infection.” 

“Eugh.” Haru made a curdled, horrified noise. “Yeah. That’s why we don’t do that. Gross.” 

“Show me what you did to your hair. It looks the same from this angle. Also, before I deepthroat my own feet, gender tonight? I don’t see a pin.” 

Haru turned around and lifted a mass of straight, dark hair, showing off the stylized koi fish on the back of his shirt and an extraordinarily stylish undercut shaved into an elegant wave pattern. “Ta-da!” 

“Sexy,” Athena said. “You’re seriously making me reconsider my commitment to growing mine out.” 

“You want my stylist’s contact information?” Haru asked. “He’s not cheap, but the results are _so_ worth it.” 

“Can’t hurt. It’ll give me something to think about when I’m working out tomorrow.” 

Haru sent the screen name her way and she saved it to her contacts. “So you getting dinner tonight or just drinks? We’ve got some really good veggie stir fry and Haps is in a sushi making mood tonight.” 

“It takes a lot of sushi to fill my tank. I’ll take a double of that stir fry, though. Can you convince Haps to throw some shrimp in mine?”

“Probably. He likes you,” he said. 

“You mentioned something new on the menu. Any new drinks?” she asked. 

Haru tilted his head mechanically and started in a pitch perfect service bot voice, “Our! Specials of the day! Are! Green tea rum shots! Strawberry cider! And! Drunk apple slices!” he switched back to his normal voice. “All new this week, and Haps wanted to give them all _the shittiest_ names.” 

Athena was laughing hard enough that she had to catch her breath before she could answer. “What did he want to call them?” 

“Seasick sailors, love potions, and drowned apples.” 

“Drowned apples don’t sound… awful,” Athena said. 

Haru rolled his eyes. “No, but if you give him an inch, he’ll take a mile, and I refuse to offer someone a _seasick sailor_. Better not to let him get any big ideas.” 

“All three sound great. I’ll try one of each,” Athena said. 

“That’s my girl. Double stir fry, extra bugs, and a sundown special. Oh, and we’ve got a deal going on tonight. I’ve had a shit day, so if you make me laugh before your bill hits the table, you get a free drink,” Haru said. 

“Is that a challenge?” Athena asked. 

“That is me _begging_ for tonight to end better than it started,” he said. Haru hefted himself to his feet and went to put Athena’s order in. 

* * *

Second Twelve was popular with service workers. It was open long after most places closed, had good food, and the staff’s carelessly friendly attitude, Haru’s in particular, was popular with people who were used to being on the other side of the customer service smile. 

After less than an hour at the community table, Athena had four other off-shift drivers sitting with her swapping stories and tossing bad jokes at Haru when he wandered past. 

“Why do seagulls live by the sea? If they lived by the bay they’d be bagels!” 

“Sorry about your breakup. I broke it off with my cheating ex this week too. I miss her, but my aim is improving!” 

So far, only Mac had won her free drink for an elaborate pun about a frog and a loan shark, and the rest of them had gotten nothing but groans from the crowd and the odd half-smile from Haru.

“You got a second?” Mac asked when Haru was done delivering a bill to another table.

“What’s up? You got another zinger for me?” he asked. 

“We need an impartial judge. We’re trying to figure out who had the weirdest day today,” Kayla explained. 

Haru sat between her and Aldose. “I can take a minute for that. Lay it on me.” 

“Mine’s not that bad,” Aldose started. “I just got an order for a tea from the Washington, to be delivered three floors up, also on the Washington. Got tipped 100% for a ten minute walk.” 

“Huh. Some people have more money than sense, I guess?” Haru said. “Who’s next?” 

“I taxied a drunk selkie around for a couple hours,” Kayla said. 

“ _Weird_ ,” Haru said. “Why?” 

“She got sloshed at a swim up bar and was scared she was gonna pass out underwater and no one would take her to the surface when she needed to breathe. She had the credits for a two hour ride, so I parked in the shade and let her sleep it off on the cargo rack.” 

“Not bad. Next?” Haru looked around the table. 

Rain piped up, “I ran my first black box. Crate was bigger than I am and completely sealed. They opened it up when I got there and it was full of pop boxes and unlabeled vials. I think I ran drugs,” they ended in a whisper. 

“Honey, with all due respect, _keep your goddamn yap buttoned about black box runs_ ,” Haru said sharply in a low, dangerous voice. “This is the _mall_ , not some mom and pop out on the lake. We don’t discriminate here, and it’s not loud enough that you couldn’t be overheard.” 

“I delivered lunch for the Admiral,” Mac said over whatever Rain opened their mouth to snap back. They were young and didn’t have the same respect for outsiders the rest of the table had developed years ago. “Probably. I had to have my credentials checked three times and a spook took the bag. It was sealed just about air tight, too, with a tamper sticker.” 

“What did she get?” Haru asked, jumping on the topic change. 

“Fried crab, a jar of kimchi, two sides of peanut sauce, and an order of fried rice, all extra spicy. Oh, and a strawberry soda.” 

“Weird. Kayla’s winning so far. Whatcha got for me, Thena?” 

“A dildo hit my bike,” Athena said with a shrug.

“A…” 

“Dildo. Hit my bike. Left a print on the windscreen. It’s still there, if you want to see it.” 

“I think I have to,” he said. He called “Haps! I’m taking ten! Don’t burn down the kitchen!” toward the back. 

“Don’t tell me what to do!” and the sound of a knife hitting wood sounded back. 

* * *

It hadn’t rained that evening, and Athena’s bike was just as dirty as she left it. There were flecks of gunk on the lower guard and bottom of the windscreen, micro trash caught in the floor grate, and the perfect imprint of a dirty dick and balls, vein and all, exactly at eye level. 

“Oh my god,” Haru said. 

“I’m washing her tomorrow, so if you want a picture, now’s the time,” she said. 

“ _Oh my god_ ,” he squealed. He started giggling, high and bright. “A dildo hit your bike! How?” 

“I had my friction shields adjusted for some oversized cargo and it left a hole just big enough for a dick,” Athena explained. 

“A- A hole… just big enough for- for a _dick_ ,” Haru howled. He screamed with laughter and doubled over to hold his stomach, right there on the rusted over surface of the mall. 

Athena realized what she said and started laughing too. “Oh _hell_ that’s funny. I need to remember that one.” 

“This is the best thing I’ve seen all day. Let me take a picture. Then I think I owe you a drink.” 

“I wasn’t even thinking about that,” Athena admitted while Haru got the angle just right for the dick print to catch the light from the setting sun. 

Haru laughed again. “Well, you earned it. C’mon. Back downstairs. I’ll get you anything you want.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to whatever gobshit is responsible for the filthy dildo that hit my car on I24 two months ago. Whoever you are, you need to dispose of your toys more responsibly.


	3. Chapter 3

“Haru, babe, you look dead on your feet. Why are you still at work?” It’s past midnight. Athena just got done fighting for the night and was hoping for some dinner and a drink to celebrate. She didn’t expect to see her favorite server, so long after her favorite server’s usual shift. Haru should have been in bed ages ago, if they, Athena notes their pin is turned around to show a winged fish tonight, started at their usual 3 pm pre-opening. 

“Shit situation. Don’t worry about it,” Haru says. “What can I get you tonight, sweetheart? Ice pack for the shiner?” 

“It’s my gold medal for a clean sweep tonight,” Athena brags. 

“Grats. You just get done?” 

“About an hour ago. Cleanup took a while.” 

“You here for victory drinks?” Haru asks. 

“Sundown special, and I’ll take the story of why you’re working so late while I’m at it.” 

Haru groans. “It’s dumb. I’m dumb. I forgot what day it was and let rent on my pod lapse. I got my shit back and got storage for it, but I don’t have enough for a downpayment on a new rental right now. End of this triple shift and I’ll be golden, but I’ve gotta get through it and make some money first. 

“Fuck. You’re working a triple?” Athena asks. 

“What else am I supposed to do? I can’t exactly knock off and go to bed until I have somewhere to stay,” Haru says miserably. 

“You can ask me for money,” Athena says. She’s pretty flush after a long day of nonstop winning, and she doesn’t want anyone to have to work a  _ triple  _ just for somewhere safe to sleep. It seems cruel that anyone would ask Haru to do that. 

“Thanks, honey, but I’m in too much debt right now to take out a new line of credit, even with a friend. I appreciate it, but I just need to work tonight and then I can crash. Let me get you those drinks.” 

Athena thinks through her options while Haru makes her drinks. She could definitely just leave a huge tip and let them knock off early, get their pod, and only work a double. Will Haru’s pride allow that? Probably not. They’re from Chicago and don’t take kindly to charity of any sort. But if Athena got a berth at the mall for the night, and just so happened to invite a pretty enby back to her room with her when she was drunk, would Haru go for it?

Only one way to find out. 

The sundown special is rum-heavy tonight. Rum and ginger ale, orange rum shots, and something Haps is calling the small hadron collider that hits Athena like a tanker to the chest as soon as she sets down her glass. 

“Mother fucker.” she snorts hard a couple times, trying to clear the ethanol fumes from her nose. 

“Made to order, and I gave yours a kick,” Haru says. 

“Can I get some dinner while I’m sitting?” Athena was fully prepared to pretend to get drunk and goofy enough to ask her friend to go home with her, but she’s already feeling a heavy buzz after three drinks and might not have to fake it. 

“What sounds good?” 

“I’ve been eyeing the snail buns since I got in, and a double of fried rice, some spring rolls, and another sundown, please.” 

“Coming right up, babe.” 

The snail buns are amazing, the rest of Athena’s food and drinks are as good as they always are, and she eats and drinks her way through a few busy hours at the best late night restaurant in the mall. 

“Hey,” she stops Haru on their way past with a hand around their skinny twig elbow. 

“Hey honey. I need to go call an order in. Be right back.” 

“You should come home with me tonight.” 

Haru snorts a laugh through their nose. “I’d love to, but you know I can’t.” 

“No, I’m staying at the  _ mall  _ tonight. You should stay with me,” Athena knows Haru can’t come more than a mile offshore, not until their paperwork gets processed, but they can come home and stop working so hard with her, and then they can afford their shitty downpayment on their shitty pod tomorrow after a sane work shift that isn’t eighteen hours on their feet. 

“Fuck, hon. You don’t know what you’re asking.” 

“Just to sleep,” Athena says. She’s too drunk to give anyone a good time right now, and probably couldn’t get off herself if she had three hours and a magic wand. “I just want you to get to sleep tonight.” 

Haru sighs and hooks an arm around her neck, towing her in for a hug. “You’re very sweet. Let me think about it. You want another drink?” 

“Nother… orange shot. Nother two orange shots, and some fried rice,” Athena decides. 

“Back in a second. Hang tight.” 

It’s another two hours and a few more drinks before Haru gives her a real answer. 

“I want you to know I wouldn’t do this with anyone but you,” they say, sitting at her table with a drink and a quick dinner of their own. 

“You’re going home with me?” Athena chirps. 

“I need an hour to clean up, then yeah. I guess I’m going home with you.” They wolf down a couple big bites of fried fish and rice. 

“Do I get to carry you home over my shoulder?” Haru is very pretty. Athena has already set in her mind that she’s keeping her hands to herself tonight, but being seen taking the mall’s coolest permanent resident home, draped over her shoulder like a prize, would be the perfect cap to a pretty damned good day. 

“We’ll talk about it.” They’re already done eating. Haru swallows down a mug of mixed tea in two gulps and says “I owe you one. Tab out whenever you’re ready to rock and roll.” 

Athena finishes her drinks and spring rolls, then pays her tab from a screen attached to her table and adds a hefty tip. Haru deserves it. Haru deserves so much goodness in their life. It’s not fair that they’ve been stuck in paperwork limbo for as long as they have. Not fair at all. 

Athena does end up carrying Haru a short ways over her shoulder. Their feet are killing them, and the stairs down to the temporary berths are narrow and creaky. They hang onto Athena’s shirt with their elbows hooked over her shoulder and let her carry them home, to whichever anonymous berth home is tonight, like a princex. 

They find the right door between the two of them and punch in the door code. It’s dark inside, aisle room with a sunlamp that hasn’t been turned on yet, and it takes a couple minutes of stumbling around in the dark to find it and illuminate everything. 

The berth is huge, with two double beds and a whole wall of shelving. There’s an attached washroom too, and a little closet with extra blankets and towels and things. 

“Dibs on first shower,” Haru says, breezing past Athena toward the washroom. They have an overnight bag from their stuff in storage. Athena needs to start keeping one of those in her bike. All she has tonight are the clothes on her back and what comes with the berthing. Maybe Haru will let her borrow some shampoo in the morning, so she can wash her gross hair before she has to fly home and explain where she’s been all night. 

They have the room until noon tomorrow, and if they sleep later than that, Athena will pay for the difference without letting Haru know. Overnights are free to try to prevent drunk driving, after that accident last fall, but more than that and it costs a little bit of money to stay berthed at the mall if you don’t work an official job. 

Haru comes back out with a towel around their waist while Athena is dreaming about being a permanent resident and getting paid to fight every day. It’s the dream, but she’s honestly too fucking good for it. Super soldiers are a dime a dozen around here, and she doesn’t have the wild ups and downs that make her fun to bet on. She’s too stable, has too little riding on the fights, and she doesn’t psych herself out often enough to be a headliner like War Machine. 

“You don’t have nipples!” Athena realizes after a second. Haru’s chest is bare skin, with a thin horizontal scar on one side. 

“Got ‘em surgically removed a while back. Them and everything else,” Haru says. 

“ _ Everything _ else?” 

“Pretty much. It’s a pretty radical mod, but it’s what I wanted, so I scraped together a downpayment and paid a shady doctor to cut my junk off. Shower’s open, by the way. I saved you some hot water.” 

“What? What does that mean?” 

“It’s a Chicago joke. Hot water is a limited resource there. Don’t worry about it.” 

“How is  _ hot water _ a limited resource?” 

“Because Chicago is a shithole. Go wash your sweaty ass.” 

“Hey. My ass is perfect.” Athena lumbers up to her full height, towering over tiny little Haru in their towel and hair wrap.

“It’s lovely. Go shower. I need to charge my phone.” Haru isn’t scared of her at all. They breeze past her drunk, sweaty ass and flop down on the bed closest to the wall outlet. 

Loathe as she is to admit it, Athena is pretty sweaty after drinking in a crowded restaurant for four hours. She rinses off and scrubs herself with the teeny tiny bar soap that came with the room. Her hair is fine for tonight. She doesn’t want to go through the whole ordeal of getting it wet and washed and dried, so she leaves it in its ponytail and tries not to let it get sprayed. The showerhead here is positioned to hit her square in the chest anyway, so she’s fine. The very ends of her hair get a little bit damp. It’s okay, though. It’s fine. It’s just water. 

The steam clears out Athena’s head enough that she doesn’t climb into bed with Haru, even though she really wants to. She takes the other bed and curls up on her side, naked and clean and drunker than she thinks she wants to be. 

“What’cha doin’?” she asks across the short space to Haru’s bed. 

They’re working on something on their phone, squinting at small text and tapping occasionally. “Trying to get some paperwork figured out. I missed my last citizenship interview because of a blackout last week, and I can’t find the form I need to verify that I need to reschedule, so I don’t have to start at the beginning.” 

“The most important part of any form is in the last third,” Athena says. It’s one of the few pieces of useful wisdom her dad ever managed to impart to her, and it’s probably saved her  _ days  _ of combing through paperwork.

“Huh. Okay.” Haru scrolls down a bit and gets back to reading. “Wrong form, but it has a link to the one I need. Thanks.” 

“I can’t believe you’re still doing interviews. I thought they rubber stamped fourhands straight through,” Athena says. Why has Haru been in paperwork hell for this long? 

“They do, if the fourhands has job training, a good family, or a ton of money to throw at the problem,” Haru grumps. “I’m a server who doesn’t talk to their family. What the fuck does the Fleet want me for?” 

“Because you deserve to be here. You’ve been working on shit for like a year, right?” 

“Eight months, next week. It’s alright, hon. This is supposed to take a couple years. They’re fast tracking me as much as they can get away with. I just need to chill and be patient.” 

“Mmm. The most patient.” 

“You can go to sleep if you want, baby. I just need to stay up and do my homework for a minute,” Haru says. 

“Wanna help you with homework,” Athena mumbles. 

“You can help me in the morning. Shh. Sleep time.” 

Athena tries to grumble another protest, but falls asleep before she can get it out of her brain and into her mouth. 

She dreams about storms, and gunfire, and a lockdown at the mall. Being ushered down, down, down stairs, past checkpoints, and through storm barriers to a quiet cafeteria with no windows, full of hundreds of tense, silent other people all churning and scared and not listening when people in blue jackets tell them it’s going to be okay, they have the situation under control. 

Athena wakes up alone in bed, with a sunrise clock playing out its dawn program directly in her face. She rolls over and covers her pounding head with a pillow. Haru is on the other bed, making a small shape under the blankets where they’re curled into a ball with nothing but the top of their head exposed. 

Athena can swing another couple hours of sleep. It’s not like she has anywhere to be today. She does need to do something about this fucking sun lamp, though. It takes a solid minute to steel herself before she can get up and switch it off, and she finds her bed again with her knees in the pitch black. That’s fine. She hurts plenty already, between fighting and drinking, and a new ache in her knees isn’t going to keep her awake. She collapses back into bed and is out before her head hits the pillow. 

“Do you want breakfast?” Athena asks when they’re both awake and have done the stumbling around in the dark thing for a third time. The sun lamp is set to noon and is blazing down on them from its spot high on the wall. Haru is dressed and has brushed her, she has her pin switched to a stylish cast bronze sparrow, hair out into a gorgeous blue-black wave. 

“I could go for a cheap breakfast. I still need to get my pod today.” 

“I was just gonna give you one of my blocks,” Athena says. She gets four from any dispenser she wants, and she really doesn’t need that much food on a hangover stomach. 

Haru claps once, definitively. “That fits my criteria for cheap breakfast. Let’s go.” 

“Do you have the money for a pod?” Athena asks. She didn’t work her triple last night, only a double.

Haru has all her stuff in her bag, ready to go, and Athena doesn’t have anything to gather up. She closes up the overnight berth with ten minutes to spare and gives it her palm print to let it know she’s done with it for the night. Someone will be by to sanitize it before the next pair of people stay the night, so as long as she got all her stuff and didn’t leave a mess, it’s not her problem anymore. 

“I got a couple of huge tips last night. Just enough money to scrape a pod and a couple days worth of cafeteria breakfasts.” 

“Proud of you. It’s total bullshit that you have to pay for housing at all,” Athena says, giving her a short side hug. 

“Yeah, well, couple more months and I’ll have a houseboat somewhere,” Haru says, sounding wistful. 

“Can I come visit you at your houseboat?” 

“Course you can. And I’m gonna order delivery every fucking day so I can see you when you’re at work too.” 

“Oh, what a  _ terrible  _ imposition. I’m going to have to see you at work,” Athena complains. She gets her blocks and a couple bowls of cut fruit out of the dispenser and passes one of each to Haru. “What do you want to do as a career?” 

“I’m doing the pre-med certs right now. Should be done with those and ready for the real med classes by the time I get stamped in. I want to be a medic, help people, save lives, that whole thing.” 

“Second Twelve is gonna miss you.” 

“Haps will survive. I’m probably gonna have to get a job at a lunch boat to make ends meet while I’m working on school. Maybe I’ll stay at Second. Commute can’t be that bad.” 

“Mall to anywhere takes kind of a while,” Athena says. She’s not really supposed to explain fleet ship positioning to an outsider, even an outsider who’s a couple months from being a citizen. She doesn’t think Haru can do anything with the knowledge that nothing puts down an anchor less than ten miles from the mall, and most ships stay way, way farther out than that, just as a matter of safety, but loose lips sink ships. Any hospital ship where she could intern would be in the center to northern reaches of the Fleet’s part of the lake, but Haru will find that out on her own when she gets clearance. 

“Speaking of, I need to get going. Need to get my pod set up before work tonight. You want the rest of this?” She passes the second half of her fruit across the table to Athena. 

“I’ll eat it. Don’t work too hard tonight, and let me know if there’s any trouble with the pod.” 

“Thanks. There won’t be, but thanks. I owe you one. Drinks on me my next night off.” 

“Call me if that ever happens,” Athena jokes. 

“I’ll pencil you in. Fifth of never.” 

Athena laughs and bundles Haru’s trash onto her tray. “Alright. I’ll see you soon. Be safe.” 

“You too, hon. Thanks for everything.” 


End file.
